Fukushima Unit 1 Robot Failure, What We Know So Far

Per Yahoo News Japan, the robot died about 2/3 of the way through the planned route. Specifics about what kind of failure the robot had were not available yet but Kyodo News reports that workers tried to tug on the data cable but were unable to move the robot. Workers are currently working on an effort to retrieve the robot from containment.

This map of the planned work, rotated to match the existing floor plan orientation of unit 1 documents shows roughly where the failure happened with a red circle.

This floor plan of unit 1 first floor shows the structures in the reactor and building. The vertical and horizontal lines can be used to compare the two illustrations.
This floorplan of unit 1 on the torus basement level also coordinates with the same quadrant of the above illustrations.
This illustration from the boat robot inspections of unit 1’s torus room show the downcomer pipe locations (numbered). The area of downcomers 6 and 7 is the area where TEPCO has not published video or images for. We have asked for the footage of this section in the past and TEPCO refused to make it public without explanation. This is the same quadrant where the robot failed.

Much more information is needed to accurately understand what caused the failure of the robot. Hitachi should have video and data readings for the portion of the trip up until the failure. That data may help understand what caused the robot to fail. The very rough machine translation of the Yahoo News article referenced seeing “debris”  as such:
“In a state where the image seen live camera, near the opening to the basement there is debris has been confirmed that it has passed.”
We are working on obtaining clarification what this portion of the story actually indicated.

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